CHRISTIE (Agatha, 1891-1976, Detective Novelist)

Fine Autograph Letter Signed ("Agatha Mallowan") to Lady Stewart saying that they “did enjoy our evening with you so much - It was a delightful party & all your guests were such fun to meet. I am still full of interest in your Italian home to be - Houses have always been my passion - usually acquiring interesting looking wrecks & having fun doing them up, living in them for a year or two, then selling & starting again; a pastime put a stop to by the discovery I’d have to pay War Damage Insurance on them all - & nobody wanted to buy - only the one we really wanted to live in was bombed! But I never got as far as building a house. I was entranced by Washington & hope to come again sometime. Your husband was extraordinarily kind in all the help he gave us... I hope we shall see you again in England...”, 2 sides 4to., Wade Park Manor headed paper, Cleveland, Ohio, 5th November the year added in another hand

In August 1926, her husband Archie asked Agatha for a divorce. He had fallen in love with Nancy Neele. On 3rd December 1926, the pair quarrelled after Archie announced his plan to spend the weekend with friends, unaccompanied by his wife. Late that evening, Christie disappeared from their home in Sunningdale. The disappearance quickly became a news story, as the press sought to satisfy their readers' "hunger for sensation, disaster, and scandal". Despite the extensive manhunt, she was not found for another 10 days. On 14th December 1926, she was located at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate, Yorkshire, 184 miles north of her home in Sunningdale, registered as "Mrs Tressa[d] Neele" (the surname of her husband's lover). In 1928, Christie left England and took the Orient Express to Istanbul and then to Baghdad.   In Iraq, she became friends with archaeologist Leonard Woolley and his wife, who invited her to return to their dig in February 1930. On that second trip, she met archaeologist Max Mallowan, 13 years her junior. He was her husband for the rest of her life.
From the collection of Sir Michael Stewart (1911-1994, KCMG, OBE, HM Ambassador to Greece and Minister at the British Embassy in Washington)

Item Date:  1966

Stock No:  41931      £1500

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